This question has been asked a lot, even by scientists in the West who can be bothered to peek above the parapets of their own crisis. An article in the NYT recently ended up suggesting that there might be something going on a a deeper level than personal or social behaviour, they thought it might be down to genes. Then a few days ago a spokesman for the CCSA was pondering the same question. He noted that SE Asians tend to be more prone to catching dengue fever than foreigners, so perhaps that they are less prone to getting Covid-19 for whatever reason. These are all along the lines of "if wishes were fishes" theories, however, with nothing in the way of the how or the why.

 

I came across this article in last week's Economist magazine. I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to link there as it's a paid subscription site, so I've made a picture of the relevant article from my digital copy of the magazine and attached it. I hope that doesn't break any rules, as this is very interesting, for the first time I've seen we're getting a glimpse of the how and the why.

 

It leads with some interesting stuff about bat populations, but the really thought-provoking bit starts in the paragraph beginning "Jeremy Farrar" between the two pictures.

 

That the population should be somewhat immune is undermined by the many infected Thai people returning to Thailand from other countries.

Regarding Vietnam, they may not have had a great lockdown, but they closed their borders very effectively from early on.

A conspiracy theory post has been removed.

 

I don't think anyone really knows for sure or even with any reasonable certainty. It certainly would seem like something deserving of more focused, professional scientific inquiry (meaning not by the local government-affiliated Thais).

 

I happened to catch a CNN segment on that topic earlier today via the web, that raised the same question. The only real person the piece interviewed was a Thai public health ministry guy, who chalked it all up to the government's supposed volunteer virus tracking/tracing corps of citizens -- a claim I've heard from them before elsewhere.  To me, that seems rather unlikely to be a real cause.

 

Early on, the case count and suspected case count in Thailand was rising quite rapidly, and then the government imposed the ban on incoming international travel first, and then the 14-day quarantine for those few allowed in. And unlike Thailand most of the time, after a rocky start, they actually seem to have enforced those two policies seriously, most of the time.

 

There's also the supposed theory about the original China version of the virus, which came to Thailand, being a somewhat less contagious version, than the later one that arose in Europe and wreaked havoc there before being exported to the U.S. East Coast. By the time the Europe version was circulating, I think Thailand had pretty much closed its international borders, which probably contributed as well.

 

And then lastly, there's the unknown "it's really here, but the government isn't testing for it, and those getting sick from it aren't being identified..." -- to whatever extent that may be occurring. But personally, I'm inclined to believe if Thai hospital ICUs were overflowing with seriously ill respiratory patients and doctors and nurses were getting sick as well, some word of that would be leaking out.

 

China didn’t want to s**t on its doorstep.

Thailand:

America

Spot the difference!

 

Obviously wearing masks is not everything. But it often shows the attitude how serious people take this situation. And if even the leaders pretend or even say the virus will just go away then nobody should be surprised about the consequences of doing nothing.

Plenty more dead in SEA than recorded due to no testing and village hospitals that don't perform autopsies 

LOL LOL LOL

Simple arithmetic LOL

6 minutes ago, Canuck1966 said:

Plenty more dead in SEA than recorded due to no testing and village hospitals that don't perform autopsies 

Good to save face LOL LOL LOL

9 minutes ago, Canuck1966 said:

Plenty more dead in SEA than recorded due to no testing and village hospitals that don't perform autopsies 

LOL LOL LOL

Gotta justify myself LOL LOL

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

The only real person the piece interviewed was a Thai public health ministry guy, who chalked it all up to the government's supposed volunteer virus tracking/tracing corps of citizens -- a claim I've heard from them before elsewhere.  To me, that seems rather unlikely to be a real cause.

Why?

 

Thailand set up the local health volunteer system, a WHO backed initiative, when HIV AIDS was the big menace. That network of volunteers has been maintained and strengthened and currently numbers over 1 million. Familiar with their local communities, and with well established lines of reporting, this network has been used to monitor for outbreaks of the virus and to conduct track and trace.

 

.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19?xtor=ES-213-[BBC Features Newsletter]-2020July24-[Future|+Button]

 

i rank asians on top then white & middle east for long proud exposure to chinese virus export,

native americans at rock bottom of the list, tho now after 500 years of exposure they are catching up

 

there is enough inverse correlation to mask hypothesis to discard it

as an explanation, and sweden with now zero new incidents suggest

shutdown and quarantine is equally insignificant,

the only thing that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt is that its dumb to

send infected to nursing homes with very old people, the most susceptible

group by far. many leaders of ours did exactly that,

we would have been better off without leaders,

they fessed up and are now double down by ruining the economy

 

52 minutes ago, twocatsmac said:

China didn’t want to s**t on its doorstep.

I really wouldn't be surprised if it was "engineered" (or by accident)

to be less lethal to Asians.

Compliance.

 

I don't know if it's possible to quantify a nation's compliance with social distancing and masking but that would be the number to look for correlation with case numbers.

The first and main reason is that I chose to live in SE Asia, and I certainly didn't come here to be bothered by a damn virus!

 

Having stated the obvious, there might have been a few other reasons.

 

One is that East Asian populations tend to respect authorities when it matters.

 

In such a situation, they behave like good pupils following the advice of their teacher.

 

Individualism is automatically replaced with herd behavior, for the best in this case.

 

Another one is that, contrary to what happened in the West, governments in this part of the world didn't constantly interfere with the medical authorities, in order to promote, or forbid, this or that treatment.

 

 

3 hours ago, Why Me said:

Compliance.

 

I don't know if it's possible to quantify a nation's compliance with social distancing and masking but that would be the number to look for correlation with case numbers.

there is enough inverse correlation with mask to dismiss that hypothesis altogether

There are many factors and they can differ with location. Early reports suggested two forms of the virus, one more infectious (spreads easier) than the other. This has been well documented more recently.  SE Asia and Thailand got the milder one while Europe and the US East coast got the more infectious one.

 

Now there are several new outbreaks including in Vietnam. A Reuters article reports from Danang:

 

Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said the strain of the virus detected in the new outbreak is a more contagious one.  He said with the new strain, each infected person may infect about 5-6 people compared to 1.8-2.2 people in the previous period.

 

Ouch, an R0 of 5 - 6 ! (but in a limited region).

 

As for the temperature theory, that's out the window. Its hot summer time and daily cases are hitting a new record near 300,000/day.  Personally, I will stay on guard here in Thailand, but thank all the Thai for wearing masks.

16 minutes ago, scammed said:

there is enough inverse correlation with mask to dismiss that hypothesis altogether

I am talking compliance, not mandate. TN is hillbillies. They'd probably put the mask around their eyes, say, dang I can't see with this here thing, and throw it away. So we can ignore the first graph.

 

The second one makes no sense. US states mixed in with small European countries and Peru. Classic cherry picking. From Dr. Stella Emmanuel?

 

The last two from UK are interesting. One could hypothesize that an earlier adoption of masks could have broken the March-May peak.

4 hours ago, Why Me said:

Compliance.

 

I don't know if it's possible to quantify a nation's compliance with social distancing and masking but that would be the number to look for correlation with case numbers.

Yes it is, in Germany, a reduction of 40% infections from this study

 

We use the synthetic control method to analyze the effect of face masks on the spread of Covid-19 in Germany. Our identification approach exploits regional variation in the point in time when face masks became compulsory. Depending on the region we analyse, we find that face masks reduced the cumulative number of registered Covid-19 cases between 2.3% and 13% over a period of 10 days after they became compulsory. Assessing the credibility of the various estimates, we conclude that face masks reduce the daily growth rate of reported infections by around 40%.

 

http://ftp.iza.org/dp13319.pdf

 

 

9 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

Yes it is, in Germany, a reduction of 40% infections from this study

 

We use the synthetic control method to analyze the effect of face masks on the spread of Covid-19 in Germany. Our identification approach exploits regional variation in the point in time when face masks became compulsory. Depending on the region we analyse, we find that face masks reduced the cumulative number of registered Covid-19 cases between 2.3% and 13% over a period of 10 days after they became compulsory. Assessing the credibility of the various estimates, we conclude that face masks reduce the daily growth rate of reported infections by around 40%.

 

http://ftp.iza.org/dp13319.pdf

 

 

lol, so your data is 2.3% to 13% and you round it up to 40%,

that theory is not based on the data you gathered,

you may as well not have bothered collecting data when the

premeditated conclusion divert that far

13 minutes ago, rabas said:

There are many factors and they can differ with location. Early reports suggested two forms of the virus, one more infectious (spreads easier) than the other. This has been well documented more recently.  SE Asia and Thailand got the milder one while Europe and the US East coast got the more infectious one.

 

Now there are several new outbreaks including in Vietnam. A Reuters article reports from Danang:

 

Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said the strain of the virus detected in the new outbreak is a more contagious one.  He said with the new strain, each infected person may infect about 5-6 people compared to 1.8-2.2 people in the previous period.

 

Ouch, an R0 of 5 - 6 ! (but in a limited region).

 

As for the temperature theory, that's out the window. Its hot summer time and daily cases are hitting a new record near 300,000/day.  Personally, I will stay on guard here in Thailand, but thank all the Thai for wearing masks.

I don't believe it is just about wearing masks

where I live in WA we only had 669 infections

and all of them imported and we don't wear a mask.

It's all about behavior and follow the rules our boarders

are still closed to the rest of Australia just look at Victoria

an average 650 new cases every day.

 

8 minutes ago, scammed said:

lol, so your data is 2.3% to 13% and you round it up to 40%,

that theory is not based on the data you gathered,

you may as well not have bothered collecting data when the conclusion divert that far

Did you read the report, its not my theory, its the scientific data, I copied and pasted from the report you may want to take a look, mind you its 29 pages long of text and multiple charts, may be a bit much for you to take in ????

6 minutes ago, scammed said:

lol, so your data is 2.3% to 13% and you round it up to 40%,

that theory is not based on the data you gathered,

you may as well not have bothered collecting data when the

premeditated conclusion divert that far

If you don't understand a stat, better to not comment on it, let alone try to ridicule the poster.

1 minute ago, Bkk Brian said:

Did you read the report, its not my theory, its the scientific data, I copied and pasted from the report you may want to take a look, mind you its 29 pages long of text and multiple charts, may be a bit much for you to take in ????

i stopped reading when they wrote the data was 2.3 to 13 percent and they rounded it up to 40

2 minutes ago, scammed said:

i stopped reading when they wrote the data was 2.3 to 13 percent and they rounded it up to 40

Ah good for you, then you have no idea why then. Top marks 

I think the real questuon is how did they make such song and dance about it in The West?

 

A high level of obesity, a selfish culture that couldn't grasp the concept of wearing a mask to protect others, a media obsessed with scare stories, underinvestment in health services and a beloef that other people need to protect them from nature.  Throw in poor political leadership and you have a perfect storm of selfish fatties in a girly panic.

4 hours ago, Why Me said:

Compliance.

 

I don't know if it's possible to quantify a nation's compliance with social distancing and masking but that would be the number to look for correlation with case numbers.

 

Thailand hasn't had locals marching on the Government House with rifles slung over their shoulders complaining about how CV restrictions are violating their constitutional rights, filing lawsuits and threatening local health officials, claiming wearing masks is part of some Deep State conspiracy to enslave them, etc etc.

 

The U.S. has had all that in spades, along with a national leader who buys into all that B.S., or at least postures that he does, and thus drives his followers down that same road traveled by the CV version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

 

 

Just now, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Thailand hasn't had locals marching on the Government House with rifles slung over their shoulders complaining about how CV restrictions are violating their constitutional rights, filing lawsuits and threatening local health officials, claiming wearing masks is part of some Deep State conspiracy to enslave them, etc etc.

 

The U.S. has had all that in spades, along with a national leader who buys into all that B.S., or at least postures that he does, and thus drives his followers down that same road traveled by the CV version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

 

 

There's two fronts to this pandemic, the first is the virus and the second is stupidity by some countries leadership and populations. 

7 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

The U.S. has had all that in spades, along with a national leader who buys into all that B.S., or at least postures that he does, and thus drives his followers down that same road traveled by the CV version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Surely you don't mean

 

6 hours ago, farang51 said:

That the population should be somewhat immune is undermined by the many infected Thai people returning to Thailand from other countries.

Regarding Vietnam, they may not have had a great lockdown, but they closed their borders very effectively from early on.

You seem to draw the inference that if the population in Thailand is "somewhat immune" it is do to genetic similarity.  However one could also attribute a somewhat higher level of immunity (or susceptibility) to a shared immunological history.  Neighboring countries and individuals would more likely be exposed to the same pathogens and vaccines and thereby have similar B and T cell populations which could reduce (or amplify) the impact of COVID-19 infection.  It is possible that an immune system prepped with B and T cells that are reactive with COVID-19 could lead to the cytokine storm that is a problem for some of the infected.  Unfortunately the world is currently in fire-fighting mode and less focused on the research needed to resolve some of these questions.